Letters to the editor: Feb. 12

Work to preserve New Chauncey neighborhood

I applaud the recent letters from two residents about the ongoing plans and negotiations regarding the New Chauncey neighborhood and commercial development along Northwestern Avenue.

I do not live in the New Chauncey neighborhood, but I live close by in an adjoining neighborhood. Anything that affects the quality of the neighborhood and the lives of the residents in New Chauncey will very soon affect my neighborhood. Of course, commercial development will affect multiple West Lafayette neighborhoods quickly enough.

Commercial development is important and appropriate. However, we must also maintain parks, open spaces and homes. Purdue University and its immediate environment will become its own kind of ghetto without the wisdom and will to conserve neighborhoods.

Mary Campbell

West Lafayette

Let the crony parade begin for Daniels

Just for clarification purposes: The trustees who hired Mitch Daniels as the president of Purdue University were appointed by Daniels. I am now watching with extreme fascination as Daniels has named yet another person from his administration as governor to be in an upper staff position at Purdue. I am thankful that I have been privileged to witness such a profound illustration of a paradox. For if I am correct, one of Daniels' wishes as governor, which he could not facilitate, was the elimination of local governmental cronyism (streamlining as he called it). Yes, indeed. This ought to be fun to watch.

Jeff Reed

Lafayette

Need to find a suitable challenger for Rokita

I want to applaud a guest column that appeared in the Journal & Courier on Feb. 7. The author took U.S. Rep. Todd Rokita to task for his rigid and ideological approach to gun rights and his unwillingness to look for reasonable compromise. Rokita has been hiding in Washington, D.C., collecting his pay, his pension points and his excellent health care coverage. In the meantime, his constituents rarely hear from him. If we contact his office, we get form letters that say little and make it clear that what we think does not matter to him.

The current gun debate, however, is an issue on which many of his constituents of both parties want to be heard and want to see some action. While Rokita hides behind his intolerance and disregard for us, I hope some open-minded, thoughtful challenger will come forth for the election in 2014, either in the Republican primary or the general election. Those of us - Republicans and Democrats - who care not only about the gun issue but also about other important policy issues that require more than knee-jerk ideological reaction need to stand up for such a candidate with our contributions of time and money.

We must let Rokita know that the 4th District is not just a holding spot for party hacks who put their own security ahead of their deliberative responsibilities to our democracy.

Ellen Dran

West Lafayette

The high price we pay for our national defense

Our current national defense budget is about the same as that of all the other industrialized nations of the world combined. A small percentage of the budget is spent on defending out borders and coasts. Most of the money goes to punishing al-Qaida and to protecting and defending half the world, hoping that will protect us from the other half of the world. (Each year we punish ourselves, by gun violence, three times as severely as al-Qaida punished us once, on 9-11.)

Today, defense contractor Lockheed Martin spends $15 million a year on lobbying and campaign contributions. That is 15 million American tax dollars deftly transferred from Lockheed Martin's bank account to the pockets of our advocates in Washington, D.C. To the untutored mind, this poses the question of whether our politicians can be bought, and whether Lockheed Martin paid sales tax on those transactions. To Supreme Court Justice Scalia, it is simply Lockheed Martin's assertion of their First Amendment rights.

Have you ever wondered what life in these United States would be like if a majority of defense workers and some of our military people were reassigned? What if they were put to work repairing our crumbling roads, replacing our rusty, unsafe bridges, restoring our schools and mentoring our pre-kindergartners, and caring for the millions among us without health insurance? That's a pipe dream that won't materialize as long as our politicians' primary and major purpose is their own re-election.